Various studies have been conducted on assorted biomass fractionalization schemes in order to determine the feasibility of providing enhanced fractionalization for a biomass stream so as to produce anatomical fractions that might be useful in various downstream processes such as for producing enhanced animal feed; or further providing an anatomical fraction that can be used as a feedstock that could yield increased amounts of ethanol when supplied to a downstream fermentation process. For example, the University of Kentucky conducted a study that looked at the composition of corn and wheat stover using identical procedures. These studies showed that that the glucan and xylan sugar content variability can be greater than 10% for stover and cereal straw anatomical fractions. Further, lignin content variability between anatomical fractions can approach 6%. The compositional variability of these constituents between anatomical fractions is sometimes significant, and further has some degree of stable predictability. Consequently, these same materials could be exploited to improve a feedstock for a downstream fermentation process that has improved structural carbohydrate content. Those skilled in the art have long recognized that ethanol yields and fermentation processes are a function of the feedstock structural carbohydrate content.
In addition to the foregoing, recent studies have compared the response of the individual fractions of corn and wheat stover to various fermentation pretreatment schemes. These studies show that the anatomical fractions respond in a different manner to pretreatment. Further, some fractions do not need pretreatment, and for those that do, some respond better to pretreatment than others. Since pretreatment is currently the most expensive step in bioprocessing for the production of ethanol from a biomass, these studies suggest that it may be less expensive to produce ethanol from some fractions than others. In fact, an anatomical fraction that contains less digestible sugars than another, but whose sugars are more accessible, and therefore easier to convert to ethanol, may be a more preferred faction and considered a much higher quality feedstock.
A particulate residue separator and a method for separating particulate residue streams is the subject matter of the present application.